Delwar Hussain, Writer & Anthropologist
Delwar Hussain in Puma Court
This is Delwar Hussain in his long attic room at the very top of the family house in Puma Court where he grew up. Within the shadow of Christ Church, Delwar’s window overlooks the rooftops of the old houses at the heart of Spitalfields. Downstairs, his mother tends to the tiny courtyard garden, while his sister’s children play up and down the stairs but, up here in the quiet, Delwar presides over his own intellectual territory, defined by the enormous crowded bookshelf that fills an entire wall at one end of the room.
Delwar’s perspective is upon borderland, yet not just with the City of London that is visible from his eyrie but across continents to the land of of his family’s origin and the boundary between India and Bangladesh, where Delwar spent two years conducting interviews to write his first book Boundaries Undermined, completed as the culminate of his doctorate at Cambridge University. With its eloquent authoritative prose and generous shrewd sensibility, it is a strong debut – a highly readable book of real stature, introducing an important subject of international significance that was previously unexplored.
Yet the wonder is that Delwar can still inhabit his childhood world in Spitalfields with ease, overseeing his nephews and nieces playing in Puma Court and reconciling this with his intellectual endeavours as Writer, Anthropologist and occasional Correspondent for The Guardian upon Bangladeshi affairs. Thus our conversation was interrupted by a nephew seeking Delwar’s signature upon a note for his teacher, the house cat entering and stretching out upon the floor, and the general hullabaloo of busy family life – all without any disruption to Delwar’s line of thought as he told me his story.
“I was born in the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. My grandfather came to this country first, when he was in the Merchant Navy. My father came in the sixties, he worked in the garment trade and my mother joined him in the seventies. When I was born, they were living in one of the big old houses in New Rd and I still have an affection for houses with a step up to the front door because of that. Then we moved here to Puma Court in the late eighties.
The book came out of my Phd thesis looking at borders. I think I am interested in borders because I grew up in Spitalfields where there are so many borders, not just the one with the City but borders of ethnicity and class too. Growing up in a borderland, I’ve always been comfortable crossing boundaries, and I am fascinated by how different kinds of people can live together and form a life together in such places.
So I thought my upbringing was a preparation for going to the border region where India is building a two-and-a-half-thousand mile barbed-wire fence around Bangladesh. I turned up in Boropani, this village in the coal-mining region, where the mines are in India and the miners on the Bangladeshi side. The miners have to pay the border guards and cross the border illegally every day just to go to work. I wrote about these people and how their lives are there.
Yet Spitalfields did not prepare me for what I found. It is is one of the most dangerous border regions of the world – one of the most violent places I’ve been, comparable to the East End in the nineteenth century – where killings are a regular occurrence but where somehow people carry on their lives. The nature of work is changing there, people who were once peasant farmers have lost their land to soil erosion and their homes to floods. The circumstances reflected issues of globalisation – climate change destroying land and people forced to work in Indian coal mines that are supplying China with power for industry.
After two years, I came back with a large collection of notebooks of my interviews, and sat in a library in Cambridge writing them up – conveniently directly connected to Spitalfields by rail through Liverpool St Station. I did a degree in Anthropology at Goldsmith’s College first before going up to Cambridge University and I was always aware that I was privileged to be there. My mother doesn’t speak English and, when I was a child, we used to ask neighbours to help us out filling in forms. It was only at Cambridge that I was told I came from a deprived background and I actually believed it, until I turned up in this village on the India/Bangladesh border, then I realised what deprivation and poverty means.”
At this moment of the publication of his first book, I asked Delwar whether he considers himself more of an Anthropologist or a Writer. “Often Anthropologists are more interested in theories and arguing about those, rather than the people they claim to be interested in,” he assured me with a significant frown, “whereas Writers tend to be more interested in people than the theories.” If I had not guessed it already, it was ample confirmation of where Delwar’s sympathy lies.
Delwar’s grandfather, Haji Mofiz Ali
Delwar’s father, Haji Abdul Jallil
Family portrait at a studio in Vallance Rd, 1980. From left to right – Arful Nessa (mother), Haji Abdul Jalil (father), Hafsa Begum (sister), Rahana Begum (sister), Faruk Miah (cousin), Shiraz Miah (cousin) and Delwar Hussain.
Delwar Hussain
Portraits of Delwar Hussain copyright © Lucinda Douglas-Menzies
Click here to order a copy of BOUNDARIES UNDERMINED by Delwar Hussain
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Bob Mazzer On The Tube Today
These days, visionary photographer Bob Mazzer no longer works in a porn cinema in Kings Cross and has moved out to Hastings, but he still takes pictures on the tube whenever he gets the chance. “I love taking photographs of people on the tube,” he admitted to me, “I say to them, ‘You look fantastic, can I take your picture?’ and they say, ‘Yes.'”
Photographs copyright © Bob Mazzer
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More Bob Mazzer On The Tube
“In all my time taking pictures on the tube, only one person ever objected, ” revealed photographer Bob Mazzer, “and that was a guy with a huge teddy bear on his lap, which was a pity because it would have been a great picture.”
“I think if you love people, they respond to that and find it perfectly natural to be photographed,” he confessed to me.” I feel compelled to take photographs on the tube now, and I can’t travel without a camera because I can’t bear the thought I might miss something.”
Photographs copyright © Bob Mazzer
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Bob Mazzer On The Tube
“There’s definitely a link between being born in Aldgate and taking all these pictures on the tube,” admitted photographer Bob Mazzer, “You don’t think you are starting a project, but one day you look back over your recent pictures and there are a dozen connected images, and you realise it is the beginning of a project – and then you fall in love with it.”
“For a while in the eighties, I lived with my father in Manor House and worked as a projectionist at a porn cinema in Kings Cross. It was called The Office Cinema, so guys could call their wives and say, ‘I’m still at the office.'” recalled Bob affectionately, “Every day, I travelled to Kings Cross and back. Coming home late at night, it was like a party and I felt the tube was mine and I was there to take pictures.”
Photographs copyright © Bob Mazzer
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Barn The Spoon at Leila’s Cafe
Behold the mighty Barn the Spoon, a titan among Spoon Carvers
“It was Leila’s idea,” confessed my friend Barn the Spoon, when I came upon him fitting this handsome willow spoon rack at Leila’s Cafe in Calvert Avenue next to Arnold Circus. “I’m doing it so that regulars can have their own spoon made by me and then keep it here to use whenever they visit the cafe.” he explained helpfully, “They’ll eat their soup or porridge with it and then afterwards it goes back on the rack.”
“When I was eight, my mother took me to Le Chartier in Paris, where the diners keep their own napkins on the wall in pigeon holes,” recalled Leila McAlister, revealing her fond inspiration for the project,“and it became an illicit mail service with people leaving notes for each other – so maybe that will happen here?”
By now, Barn had fitted his rack – which he hopes will be the first of many if the idea is successful – and then he stood back to examine his handiwork critically, arranging a few spoons to test the effect.
First on the rack was an alder spoon made as a gift for Leila, with her name graven on the handle. “Leila’s spoon is a Scandavian design from a bent branch, so it was very complicated to carve, ” admitted Barn, placing the cherished implement reluctantly in its new home,“It’s so beautiful, I really wanted to keep it.” Beside this, he put a cherry spoon based upon a medieval London spoon at the Museum of London and then a Welsh cawl spoon in sycamore wood to complete the trio.
“I think eating with a wooden spoon is a beautiful thing, it’s a different way of life,” Barn suggested to me, stroking his beard and getting lost in contemplation of his handiwork, “You’re going to become a different person if you eat with your own handmade spoon.”
The three of us stood in silence admiring the completed spoon rack. “It looks so at home already,” added Leila with a smile of approval.
From left, traditional Welsh cawl spoon in sycamore wood, medieval London spoon in cherry wood based upon an example at the Museum of London and Scandanavian style spoon in alder wood.
Spoon made for Leila McAlister from a bent branch of alder from Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.
Get your own spoon from
Barn the Spoon, 260 Hackney Rd, E2 7SJ. (10am-5pm, Friday-Tuesday)
and keep it in the rack at
Leila’s Cafe, 17 Calvert Ave, E2 7JP. (10am-6pm, Wednesday-Saturday, until 5pm Sunday)
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Roger Pertwee, Manufacturing Stationer
Roger Pertwee with his envelope-making machine
When Roger Pertwee joined his family firm of Baddeley Brothers, the City of London was full of printers – as it had been for centuries – producing elaborate share certificates, decorative cheque books and fine hand-engraved notepaper for banks and financial companies of all kinds. Today the printers have gone from the Square Mile, replaced at first by electronic printing that has itself now been superceded by computerisation. Yet of all those erstwhile companies, Baddeley Brothers is the rare survivor, thriving in our uniformly digital age, in which – paradoxically – their exquisite, labour-intensive techniques of engraving, die-stamping, embossing and debossing have gained a new currency and an enhanced appeal.
In 1859, John Baddeley opened the company bank account, recorded as trading from Little Bell Alley near St Paul’s in the City of London in 1865, where he was joined by his sons John James and William Henry. They were the original Baddeley Brothers, who took over the running of the business in their twenties upon their father’s unexpected death in 1869. Yet the story goes back as far as Phineas Baddeley who was admitted to the Clockmakers’ Company in 1661 and, through the intervening centuries, members of the family participated in the interrelated trades of clockmaking, die-sinking and engraving.
With an ambition characteristic of Victorian entrepreneurs, the Baddeley Brothers oversaw the industrialisation of a business that had been artisanal for generations, building a towering printing works in Moorgate in 1885 and crowning the achievement when John James Baddeley became Lord Mayor of London at the ripe age of eighty in 1921. Twenty years later, the factory was destroyed in the Blitz, yet just a few pattern books survive today as tantalising indicators of the intricate lost glories of their die-stamped motifs and the lush sophistication of their illustrated headings for engraved notepapers.
“There was a gap, and I joined when I was twenty-seven, as a factory-come-officer gofer,” admitted Roger, whose sons Charles and Chris run the business today,“My uncle David ran the business then, he was tough Victorian taskmaster and, prior to that, it had been run by my grandfather William and two of his cousins.” When Roger started in the sixties, there were two factories – one in Tabernacle St which did the envelope making and die-stamping, and one in Paul St which did the engraving and lithography. In the eighties, he oversaw uniting all operations in a single building on the corner of Boundary St and Redchurch St.
“There were lots of little printers around Liverpool St, Fenchurch St, The Minories and Eastcheap – and, if there was financial take-over, any number of legal documents would need to be printed overnight,” explained Roger, recalling the days when he and his brother went round the City twice a week in their Burton suits taking orders, “It all started to go in the eighties with the advent of electronic printing but we were still producing engraved letter headings. We used to do runs of fifty to a hundred thousand letter-headings and we did all the letter-headings for Barclays Bank at one point. We had our own engravers then, they were a law to themselves – seven engravers and an artist, individuals who were creative and precise in their work, a nice crowd.”“
“We kept the dies and, in those days, all the partners in an accountancy firm were shown on the letterhead. So whenever a partner joined, we had to reprint the notepaper – which was good for business. We bought the dies from McCreedys in the Clerkenwell Rd, and they were ground and polished by hand.” he revealed, explaining the process whereby the dies could be softened for hand engraving and then hardened again for printing,“We used cyanide to harden the dies and the basement was like an inferno, but we’re perfectly ok – we’re all still here!”
Thanks to Roger’s tenacity and prudence, Baddeley Brothers survived the technological revolution, that wiped out printers in the City, by moving the family business back to Hackney – not so far from where John Baddeley operated his engraving and die-sinking works beside Mare St, two hundred years ago, before he moved down to Little Bell Alley near St Paul’s in the first place.
London Fields is where gilt-crested envelopes are produced today with unmatched finesse for those top institutions which discretion prevents us disclosing and where the fine notepaper adorned with coats of arms for venerable colleges is printed. The methods that Baddeley Brothers have kept alive, which were commonplace a century ago, have become unfamiliar now and words that sit upon the page, subtly raised or embossed or sunken, have a charismatic life of their own which no other technique can rival.
Baddeley Brothers, Little Bell Alley, business card from the early nineteenth century
Baddeley Brothers, Moorgate, constructed in 1885, this building was destroyed in the blitz of 1941
Baddeley Brothers at the corner of Boundary St and Redchurch St, 1989-1993 – now the Boundary Hotel.
Roger Pertwee, Manufacturing Stationer and Heroic Printer
Portraits of Roger Pertwee copyright © Colin O’Brien
Archive images © Baddeley Brothers
The Pointe Shoe Makers of Hackney
Contributing Photographer Patricia Niven and Novelist Sarah Winman visited the Freed of London factory in Well St to create these portraits of the Pointe Shoe Makers, an elite band of highly-skilled craftsmen who make the satin slippers worn by the world’s greatest ballerinas.
It takes two to three years to become a fully trained Pointe Shoe Maker. Hardly surprising, as each shoe is hand-made and two thirds of these shoes (including the toe ‘blocks’ themselves) are made to a Dancer’s individual specifications. Such specifications are printed onto dockets which the Makers work by. One docket was quite illegible to me – a shorthand code with the only clear words: Hessian, strong, slight taper.
There is something inaccessible and mysterious about this world – from the Makers’ symbols, to the language of the shoe, to the exclusive world of the finished product. And yet, I found the Makers to be a pragmatic group of men, into football not dance, who have become blasé about praise and who all refer to the making of these shoes as a job, irrespective of the beauty, the artistry of the finished product. They live in a world of chiaroscuro, where prima ballerinas, surrounded by bodyguards, turn up in limousines to applaud them whilst they stand at their benches six days a week producing nearly forty shoes a day, a quarter of a million shoes a year.
I asked each man if he had ever tried on a ballet shoe to get a sense of the feel – Never! – Even more remarkable then, to think that each shoe is made by touch, look, and imagination alone.
I asked each man whether he had ever been to the ballet.
I asked each man whether he calls himself a Pointe Shoe Maker or a Shoe Maker.
I asked the Maker Taksim (Anchor) what he would like people to know about his work.
He said, “I wish people could try this job. This is the hardest job I’ve ever done. My hands go numb, and I can’t feel them. Over time you get used to the pain.”
I said, “That’s what ballet dancers say about their feet.”
He said,”Really? So, their feet are our hands.”
– Sarah Winman
Taksim known as ‘Anchor’
“I’ve been here for fifteen years. I love my job and no-one tells me what to do. It came easy to me because I used to work in the leather trade and put that experience to good use. I know how the material works and moves.
I haven’t been to the ballet but I have seen my dancers on television – Leanne Benjamin, Jane Taylor to name two. I make Jane Taylor one hundred pairs of shoes a year, all 5 ½ X heel pins. I am proud to make shoes for her. I have met all my prima ballerinas and had photos taken with them. They appreciate us I think.
I have no time to go to the ballet because I work six days a week. I need to rest and put my feet up. I’m a big football fan, enjoying the tennis too, at the moment. We don’t tell people we make ballet shoes, we are just shoe makers. I make thirty-eight pairs a day and am booked up until mid December.
I was born in Cyprus. I never imagined I would have done this. When I came here thirty years ago, I expected to work in a fish and chip shop.”
Taksim’s ‘anchor.’
Taksim’s ‘anchor’ in place upon a pair of his shoes – ballerinas have been known to scratch off their Maker’s symbol to keep him exclusively for her!
Taksim’s work bench.
Fred known as ‘F’
“I was in-between jobs and went to Freed in Mercer St in Covent Garden and learned to be a Maker. I had no idea what I was getting into. My friends all worked in warehouses or were builders so I didn’t tell ‘em what I did until I’d been making shoes for a year.
Have I been to the ballet? No, you’re havin’ a larf, aren’t you?!
When I made my first shoe, I was elated, tell you the truth, that I’d done something. I started off unloading lorries, and it took three months before I got on the bench. Then did soft toes, then hard toes.
I make forty pairs a day and I have a waiting list. I call myself a shoe maker. When you hear a prima ballerina say you’re great, it’s wonderful. Then you hear it so many times…and well…
There’s really nothing glamorous about standing at a bench for ten hours. Do I enjoy making shoes? Look at me. I’m sixty-two and sweating!”
Fred’s ‘F’ on the sole a pair of his shoes.
Fred’s work bench.
Ray known as ‘Crown’
“We are given symbols when we start making shoes, so that if anything is wrong with the shoe they know who to blame! I have been here for twenty-six years. My father-in-law got me a job interview here. I get satisfaction from making the whole shoe myself. Other shoes are made by lots of people.
I love that dancers are wearing my shoes.
You are trained and learn the basics. People teach you their ways and sometimes those ways are conflicting. Then I had to find my own way. There’s a lot of trial and error. I found a style that I like and the dancers like, and I’ve kept to it.
Every dancer likes a different shoe. Each Maker is different – one might use more paste than the other. But dancers come back and stay with you for life. They will tell you what they need.
I’ve never been to the ballet, but if I watch it on the television I look at their feet. I know how to craft the shoe by touch, feel, look. I instinctively know how much paste to use, how much hessian. If the dancer wants a light block she’ll get one. If she wants a shoe with more give I do that. The dancers are fascinated to meet the makers. I make forty pairs a day. I don’t have much time off. People wait weeks to get a shoe from me. I make a lot of shoes for the New York City Ballet.
I love my job. I could never have dreamt of this, or of having my photo taken with dancers or even of someone writing down what I’m saying.
I was born around here – grew up bit with my dad and a bit with my mum. It was all a bit of an adventure. My two daughters take up my time. I made a pair of soft toes for my six year old girl. They don’t do ballet now. They have found their own interests.”
Ray’s work bench.
Ray’s ‘Crown’ on the sole of a pair of his shoes.
Daniel known as ‘Butterfly’
“My wife has been a Pointe Shoe Fitter in the Freed shop since she was sixteen. She was a dancer, went away and travelled the world. We met when she was in the Philippines, and she brought me back with her and we had babies. She went back to the shop and four months ago I started to make shoes here. I have a good teacher in Tksim, he’s a Master.
I do enjoy it. I always found it fascinating when my wife talked about dancing and shows and make-up. I always had the curiosity. Always thought, I want to be part of all that.
I haven’t been to the ballet yet, but I’ve watched it on Youtube.
Since I’ve been making shoes, I look at the dancer’s feet. I used to be a tight-rope walker and a trapeze artist. When I was a trapeze artist, I had to wear a leather glove. We made the leather gloves ourselves and the leather was so important. I understand how the leather is important for the shoe, I’d never realised it before.
I will call myself a Pointe Shoe Maker.I make twenty-four shoes a day. It has come naturally to me, but it’s very hard work. My hands and my shoulders ache. This here is the first ever shoe I made here. It gives me great satisfaction because it is a very important shoe – because this is a shoe that is not to be worn everyday in the street.
It’s craftsmanship.”
Daniel’s first shoe with his ‘Butterfly’ mark on the sole.
Daniel’s mark.
At Daniel’s work bench.
Alan known as ‘Triangle’
“I started next door in Despatch and then I was given the opportunity to come here and make shoes. I made my first pair of shoes nine years ago. Dancers come here and they thank us and applaud us.
I have been to the ballet once. I can’t remember what it was – it wasn’t really my cup of tea. I’m a DJ and prefer a different dance. My kids do ballet and I’ve made one of them a pair of shoes
I call myself a shoe maker.
If I wasn’t here, I would be painting or decorating or a barman.
We don’t see what other people see. You see something beautiful. I see a finished product, a skilled job well done.”
One of Alan’s shoes with his ‘triangle’ on the sole.
An order with the customer’s specifications.
When the block and platform have been created – this is the moment when it rests ghostly on Pointe, unaided, perfectly balanced, dancing its own breathtaking dance.
Alan’s work bench
Darren Plume, Quality Controller & Manager of the London Makers
“My grandfather worked as a storeman here thirty years ago. I left school and joined here when I was fifteen and a half years old. I started off unloading lorries, making tea, that sort of thing. I’ve been here twenty-six years now and have done mostly everything. I took over jobs as people left or retired. I never thought about leaving because I’m happy with what I do.
It’s the people who made me want to stay. I had a lot of father figures. I’ve known Ray (Crown) twenty-six years and we see each other more than we see our own families. My mates used to think I was nuts working here because they were all on building sites, but then they saw the dancers who came in and they changed their minds.
The Makers know more about the shoes than I do. The shoes go into the ovens overnight to bake and harden the block and, first thing in the morning, I check every one of them – that’s my responsibility. I also liaise with the dancers, because if they have a problem they’ll ask to visit us.
Once I used to be in awe of them, now I think they might be a little in awe of us. No shoes, no dance. The dancers rely on us a lot. Their Maker would only have to get an injury and psychologically it could affect them quite a bit.
I’ve been to the ballet twice. I saw Swan Lake at the ENO in the round five years ago. We took a Maker’s bench down there and made shoes in the foyer for the audience to see what we did. Three, four hundred people wanted to shake our hands.
When I was watching the ballet I was only looking at the shoes.
This job’s a bit like a fairytale. You can get caught up in the moment. Some days it flows, some days it’s a pig’s ear and some days you’re as happy as Larry. The most important thing as a manager is to listen to people. Then buy ‘em a coffee and make ‘em happy.”
Photographs copyright © Patricia Niven
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